Regarding memory management: so really all that comes down to is trying to conserve both unnecessary memory allocations (instead of allocating the entire thing, when you only need parts of it), and consequently CPU usage by not having to check where to write, each and every time.

Which of those sections aren't of concern to these reads/writes? Or the better question is, which of these special sections do we care about handling?

Apologies for all the questions, I really can't see anything else that explains the N64 in all that much detail (edit: that was kind of a silly thing to say, reading over the CPU's technical docs at the moment -- and well, there's source out there.). If you know of something, though, I'd happily wade through it instead of bothering you! Really appreciate your time.